Capricorn Investment Group, one of the world’s biggest family offices, could break its relationship with Goldman Sachs following accusations by the US financial watchdog that the firm misled clients over mortgage trading.
Capricorn Investment Group, one of the world’s biggest family offices, could break its relationship with Goldman Sachs following accusations by the US financial watchdog that the firm misled clients over mortgage trading.
The California-based firm is the first big client known to be reviewing ties with the investment bank in the wake of the fraud allegations which stunned the financial world, but dozens of others are said to be considering their relationship.
Capricorn, headed by Stephen George, a former Goldman banker, manages around $7bn for its high-profile investors, which include the former US vice-president, Al Gore. The firm’s executives are understood to be so angry with Goldman that they are deciding whether to continue using the firm for business transactions.
A spokeswoman, talking from Palo Alto, said that the firm never comments, either on its banks or its clients. One source close to the firm, which was founded by billionaire Jeffrey Skoll, former president of eBay and an executive producer of An Inconvenient Truth, Mr Gore’s Oscar winning film on climate change, said the final straw had been watching the testimony of Goldman’s top executives at last week’s Senate investigation.
Goldman’s chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, and six other past and present executives were grilled by the sub-committee which accused the firm’s executives of acting greedily and unethically.
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